[Ichneumon]

[...Chimpanzees seem almost human, and scientists have maintained for decades that chimps are, in fact, 98.5 percent genetically identical to humans...]

Many items in nature are chemically similar to one another, but that doesn't make them similar in appearance or effect.

Genome similarity goes far beyond "chemically similar"...

It's not the molecules that a substance is made of that defines it, but rather how those molecules are arranged.

...and the above statement is *about* how "those molecules are arranged" in the genome (and the resulting phenotype).

[Jo Nuvark]

No cigar. Close is a similarity not an ancestor.
For at least 8,000 years dogs have been giving
birth to dogs and apes have been giving birth to apes.

Observable and repeatable.